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A few
years ago, I was suffering immensely from pains in my
stomach. I would awaken two or three times each
night, unable to sleep because of these terrific
pains. I had watched my father die from cancer of
the stomach, and I feared that I too had a stomach
cancer--or, at least, stomach ulcers. So I went to a
clinic for an examination. A renowned stomach
specialist examined me with a fluoroscope and took an
X-ray of my stomach. He gave me medicine to make me
sleep and assured me I had no stomach ulcers or
cancer. My pains, he said, were caused by emotional
strains. Since I am a minister, one of his first
questions was: "Do you have an old crank on
your church board?"
He told me what I already knew: I was trying to do
too much. In addition to my preaching every Sunday
and carrying the burdens of the various activities of the
church, I was also chairman of the Red Cross, president of
the Kiwanis. I also conducted two or three funerals
each week and a number of other activities.
I was working under constant pressure. I could never
relax. I was always tense, hurried, and
high-strung. I got to the point where I worried
about everything. I was living in a constant
dither. I was in such pain that I gladly acted on
the doctor's advice. I took Monday off each week,
and began eliminating various responsibilities and
activities.
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One day while cleaning out my desk, I got an idea that
proved to be immensely helpful. I was looking over
an accumulation of old notes on sermons and other memos on
matters that were now past and gone. I crumpled them
up one by one and tossed them into the wastebasket.
Suddenly I stopped and said to myself, "Bill, why
don't you do the same thing with your worries that you are
doing with these notes? Why don't you crumple up
your worries about yesterday's problems and toss them into
the wastebasket?" That one idea gave me
immediate inspiration--gave me the feeling of a weight
being lifted from my shoulders. From that day to
this, I have made it a rule to throw into the wastebasket
all the problems that I can no longer do anything about.
Then, one day while I wiping the dishes as my wife washed
them, I got another idea. My wife was singing as she
washed the dishes, and I said to myself, "Look, Bill,
how happy your wife is. We have been married
eighteen years, and she has been washing dishes all that
time. Suppose when we got married she had looked
ahead and seen all the dishes she would have to wash
during those eighteen years that stretched ahead.
That pile of dirty dishes would be bigger than a
barn. The very thought of it would have appalled any
woman."
Then I said to myself, "The reason my wife doesn't
mind washing the dishes is because she washes only one
day's dishes at a time." I saw what my trouble
was. I was trying to wash today's dishes and
yesterday's dishes and dishes that weren't even dirty yet.
I saw how foolish I was acting. I was standing in
the pulpit, Sunday mornings, telling other people how to
live, yet I myself was leading a tense, worried, hurried
existence. I felt ashamed of myself.
Worries don't bother me any more. No more stomach
pains. No more insomnia. I now crumple up
yesterday's anxieties and toss them into the wastebasket,
and I have ceased trying to wash tomorrow's dirty dishes
today.
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